Short on Happy Endings
by Ageless Drake
Summary: Falling love, with a relatively happy ending. OUTTAKE FROM REASONS WHY.


Raminas woke slowly to light bleeding traitorously through his eyelids to sting him, comfortable warmth pressed against his chest, and the distinct feeling of eyes on his neck. After a moment of trying to piece everything together—and wondering why he was only wearing his underclothes—he turned toward the eyes directed on him.

He forgot about the warm body pressed against his and nearly toppled to see his father standing in the door. Nabria gestured with his chin out of the study, but made no noise otherwise, even as he whirled on his heels and strode back out.

Raminas didn't know where his shirt had ended up. He pulled his pants on, passed a fleeting glance to Halim when he grumbled on the chaise, and then hurried out after his father.

In the hall, Nabria said nothing for a moment. He looked out over the Nebra, his shoulders stiff and arms crossed, and seemed at a loss as to what to say in the face of such an event.

When he did speak, it was not of what he saw, but of the events prior to his discovery. "Lady Saeris was asking about you, and I had to tell her that you had run off with your Bhujerban study-friend. Do you think that bodes well for my reputation, Raminas, telling the mother of a woman who would like you to court her daughter that you would rather waste away time with a base acquaintance?"

"My apologies, father. I should have considered your position." But he hadn't, and that was the core of the problem, no doubt.

"And what of this? You are lucky 'twas I who found you, and not your mother or sister—Faram forbid a servant had found you, Raminas. Were you not considering my position then; were you considering your own?"

"Halim and I—nothing happened, father." He laughed airily but knew it sounded too forced. Nabria glared at him sharply, and Raminas explained hastily, "Halim requested a stronger drink than the wine. I knew you to have spirits in your cabinet, and I did not think—I will buy you a new bottle, of course—I did not think you would notice our absence for an hour or two. But … well, you know how drinking with friends can become—."

"Not like that!" Nabria snapped, whirling to face Raminas and jab an accusing finger back at the door. Raminas swallowed thickly as Nabria hissed, "_Never_ like that. I have many years of friendly drinking under my belt, Raminas, so do not think to excuse this as some unwanted excess."

"Father—"

"And if this is the sort of thing you do in _Bhujerba_, I will have none of it. I did not send you there only to have you contract such—such _queerness_."

The words stung, which was surprising in and of itself, but more so that it made him bark an angry, "What does it matter at all? Nayla is the heir, married and with child. So what I do is within my own rights to do so!"

Raminas couldn't remember the last time he'd been struck, and so he was dumbfounded for a moment. His father's ring had left a welt on his skin, and he was left blinking in surprise as Nabria snarled, "Rectify the situation, and quickly, Raminas. I will not have this aberration under my roof."

Raminas was left listening to his father's heavy strides and the far-off burble of the Nebra. He looked back to the door and rubbed his brow—his head ached to distraction, and perhaps that was part of his ruthlessly vagrant tongue. But nothing would come of standing in the hall.

The knob of the study door was cold under his fingers, and the light from the windows was still too bright. Halim was half-roused on the chaise, groaning quietly and covering his eyes. Raminas fixed the draperies to protect their eyes and took his father's chair—where he'd sat when the entire mess had begun.

When Halim finally opened his eyes, he stared at Raminas blurrily for a moment. There was a faint, dashing blush on his cheeks; his eyes were bloodshot (obvious even from a distance), and his mouth turned down in distaste.

"You wouldn't happen to have a potion tucked into a drawer?" he rasped. Raminas offered him a small smile and shrugged, which was an honest response. He didn't trust his tongue just yet. Halim sighed and flopped back against the pliant cushions.

Halim was not in nearly the same state—of undress or apparent XX—that Raminas had been when his father had found them, and for that Raminas was jealous for a moment. Then he rifled through the drawers with an absent air, until he did indeed find a potion hidden amongst various papers.

Halim blinked up at him when he offered him the thin blue bottle and smiled that surprisingly breathtaking closed-mouth smile of his as he took it. Their fingers brushed, and Raminas was torn between keeping his grip on the bottle or letting it tumble to the ground, held by neither of their hands.

He watched as Halim tilted back his head with the bottle pressed to his lips, became infatuated with the rhythm of Halim's throat as he swallowed, and found himself blushing hotly when Halim set the bottle aside and thanked him with a sigh and a boneless sink back into the cushions.

He was silent, staring down at Halim, until Halim laughed quietly and asked in a soft, still raspy voice, "Are you all right, Raminas?"

"My apologies," was not what Raminas had meant to say.

Especially not when Halim's eyes grew a hazy confusion and he innocently asked, "What for?"

-----

It took three months before his father was not so watchful of his every movement, and by then Raminas doubted if Halim would be at all interested in finding out what had happened that night. Nonetheless, Raminas spirited himself away in a common transport airship, hidden in among the various people of commerce, and wondered what he would say when he arrived in Bhujerba.

He was guilty over what had happened, being the elder of the two of them and having more knowledge of such things as alcohol and what it did to men. If nothing else, if Halim did remember, he would like to give a genuine apology for his actions. He supposed it was the best he could do. No doubt though, Halim would want nothing to do with him, if he'd remembered their drunken night. After all, his letters had received no reply, and it was the only appropriate explanation Raminas could contrive.

He wouldn't blame Halim.

It seemed foolish to lose a friend over so foolish a thing.

The ride was not nearly as long as he remembered any other being, and altogether too long at the same time. He gathered the few things he'd brought with him, not expecting to stay long in Bhujerba, and stepped off the gangway into the port and out into the aerodrome. There was a steady press of people milling about, waiting for loved ones and connections.

And far off, standing at the private airship terminal and dressed in airy house clothes—white and pure looking—was Halim, his dark hair much shorter than it had been months earlier. Raminas couldn't keep from smiling.

He did not deign Halim with a greeting, just dropped his things and engulfed the smaller man in a warm embrace from behind. Halim made a vaguely indignant noise, flailed an arm hard enough to cuff Raminas in the side of the head, and then apologized brilliantly when he saw who it was. The stewardess behind the terminal smiled and giggled behind her hand.

-----

They were drinking again, which couldn't have been a good sign, but it was on sweeter Bhujerban _madhu_ rather than the heavy Landin stuff they'd drunk before. Halim was sprawled on his bed, one leg cast onto Raminas' lap. Absently, Raminas had taken to rubbing Halim's calf and thigh; Halim didn't seem to notice, or at least didn't mind. He kept going with his mindless prattling, and Raminas would occasionally interject with something pertinent. It was peaceful.

The Marquis had not been pleased when Raminas answered Halim's door earlier, but had said nothing to suggest that Raminas had been evicted from the house. It could have had something to do with Halim bounding over and smiling winningly at his father; it probably had something to do with the trade agreement the Marquis had with Dalmasca, and how he would not risk it despite the social outcry that might arise should Raminas be seen with Halim in such close company.

Halim sat up, and much as he had the last time they'd drunk, came to Raminas with soft eyes and long arms around Raminas' neck. This time, Raminas turned his face away from Halim; the kiss fell to the curve of his jaw instead, which was no better.

"We mustn't," Raminas growled. Halim made a soft noise, plying another kiss to Raminas' jaw.

"I am not so drunk this time," he excused, as though that might be the reason for Raminas' objection (damn his perceptions). He slid about on Raminas' lap until Raminas had to wrap his arms around Halim's waist to hold him still; it was no better like this. "Raminas …"

"'Tis not a matter of—what I mean is—I, I uh," but the words would not come. Halim's soft gaze met Raminas', playing to break his resolve. He shifted again in Raminas' lap.

And then his back was to the bed, and Raminas was leaning over him, panting slightly and holding his shoulders still.

-----

It was another two months before Halim got away to visit Raminas. They did not meet in Dalmasca, simply because the storms between he and his father had not blown over; so, instead, they adjourned to neighboring Nabradia, where Prince Heios was only too happy to give them board.

He laughed and spoke halting Bhujerban with Halim, and the three of them together hunted in the Salikawood. Heios complained to Raminas of the pressures of being a King's son, and had either of _them_ heard the news that Gramis had been named Emperor of Archadia (of course they had).

Heios did not ask questions when Halim requested that his and Raminas' rooms adjourn to each other. He smiled, and after their sparse, private dinner away from the main dining room said that he would be "out" (blushing like the virgin Raminas always thought him), and not to wait up for him too late, because he didn't know if he'd be back before morning.

"He is too young to be thinking of things like that," Raminas grumbled, sipping the Nabradian _madhu_ (stronger than Bhujerba's) and staring at the remnants of their meal. Halim, standing at a bookshelf on the far wall, laughed softly.

"Am I, then?" The words startled Raminas, and he found himself feeling slightly flush as he looked over at Halim. The Bhujerban noble smiled softly, didn't look at Raminas as he said, "He is only two years younger than I, and barely that. If he is 'too young'—"

"'Tis ... different."

Halim left for his room. Raminas heard him throw the bolt of the door that led to the sitting room.

-----

It was five weeks later, the next they saw each other, at the coronation of Gramis as Emperor of Archadia. Gramis was pleased they and Heios had been able to pull away from their busy schedules, and it was only through the good graces of apparently a single Judge Magister that they were allowed to disappear from the rest of the guests and spend any amount of time with the new Emperor.

Before the liquor flowed too thickly, they questioned the situation surrounding his coronation. Soon after Heios demanded to know if there were any women he was thinking of wedding, now that he was the Emperor and would soon need an heir—the conversation switched to discussion of that sort, and it was only Halim who sat silent. And then Gramis brought out bottles from a store none of them had known hie had.

"'Twas my brother's, actually. I seem to have inherited more than a title." It was not funny, but they laughed anyway. He was Emperor after all.

Talks of political endeavors became talk of strategy, which led easily into chess (and a clever, embarrassing anecdote from Halim of _always_ beating Raminas at the game). Soon after, they talked of nothing, and when the Judge Magister that had secreted them away arrived, Gramis laughed and called him by his Ardent name when he removed his helm.

Halim watched the Judge perhaps too closely, and Raminas wondered over the strange jealousy in his gut. As Gramis spoke in undertones to the Judge, the Judge spoke over the Emperor, informing the other three that their rooms had been made ready and one of his aides would be seeing them to their rooms.

Hours after they'd been delivered to their rooms by the Judge's aide, as Raminas was turning down his sheets and wondering how much he really _had_ drunk, his door opened and there was Halim, back pressed against the fine wooden door and face flushed.

Raminas, drunk, bit a mean, "Is this how all our encounters must be? Drunken and clumsy and unfulfilling?"

Halim would not look at him. Raminas stumbled across the room, grabbed the younger man's chin and kissed him hard; Halim only made a soft, too-pleasant noise and wrapped his long arms around Raminas' neck. It was an undoing, like the smell of Halim's hair and the warmth of his skin, and—.

"I will not do this," Raminas growled, pushing himself away from Halim. He gave a needy noise that Raminas made himself ignore, despite the throb it sent through him. "I will not have you in such state."

"I am not _drunk_," Halim sniped, stamping a foot childishly. Raminas rubbed his brow.

"You are too young."

Halim came at him then, his kiss hard and needy, his hands hot. It was an undoing.

-----

"I bid you happy birthday."

"What have you brought me as a present? 'Twill decide if I forgive your transgressions and accept your well-wishing."

The words stung, though they were said with some sarcastic mirth, and Raminas almost wanted to say that his present was his apology, but he did not think it would bode well. He laughed instead and said, "'Tis in my things. To the manse, and I will give it to you then?"

It was beginning to rain in the streets, but Halim walked slowly. Raminas felt strangely uncomfortable in the silence, like they had regressed to being fifteen and eighteen once more, like Halim was still offended at Raminas' insinuation that he was a house boy due to his pale house clothes and bedraggled hair—neither of which he wore today, his hair too short now to rumple like that and his body clothed in a stately manner.

"My father is not pleased with this visit," Halim proclaimed suddenly, as they wound toward the manse. The _sainikah_ saluted Halim sharply. In the courtyard, Halim did not hurry his steps, even though the rain was growing heavier.

"Are Gramis and Heios not to be here for your—."

"Gramis' is newly wed, and Heios is—otherwise distracted, apparently. I know not. That is not why Father is upset with your coming here."

The roof of the portico rattled on their way to the guest house. Raminas' stomach dropped; he'd never stayed there, even on the rare occasion the Marquis had shown objection to his presence. Halim continued, voice almost drowned by the rain, "He says you are bad for my health."

"What?"

Halim stopped and looked out past the rain curtain, before whirling to face Raminas.

His lips were rain slick. He did not pull back from the kiss, even to say, "He thinks I've gone absolutely mad. Perhaps he is right."

"Halim—"

"_Damn_ you, Raminas," Halim hissed, and kissed him again. Raminas' arms wound around his waist, and Halim's long arms went around his neck very slowly. The kiss was long and slow, and when Halim drew back, he rested his head against Raminas' chest. "Am I still too young?"

"Perhaps we both are," Raminas said softly. Halim tensed, even as Raminas chuckled uncertainly and delicately asked, "Must I stay in the guest house?"

"You _are_ bad for my health, _bhadra_."


End file.
